


I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you

by curiouslycurious



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Swan, F/F, Tumblr Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4787645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslycurious/pseuds/curiouslycurious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Random Dark Swan/Regina confrontation on the docks of Storybrooke sometime during s5. // "Say something. I'm giving up on you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you

**Author's Note:**

> [you're welcome to listen along as you read. this one off is a direct result of listening to this song way too many times.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-PBStpXlU)

“Emma.” It’s just one word.  _Emma_. An ordinary name on anyone else, maybe, but it holds such weight for Regina now that it feels like a punch to the gut to whisper it to the woman walking away from her. And when the Dark One turns to face her, Regina looses her breath in the face of such emptiness. Because Emma is filled with a lot of things - hate, regret, anger, sadness, rage, love, confusion - and all of those things add up to absolutely nothing when she doesn’t feel like she has a  _choice_  anymore.

_I’m the dark one, Regina. I’m no good to anyone if I stay, and I’ll only hurt y–the people here._

It’s an argument they’ve had so many times over the past month that it’s become completely old hat, and it holds no weight for either of them anymore. Regina begs her to stay - to  _fucking try, God-damn it! For Henry if you won’t do it for yourself._ \- and Emma shies away and shakes her head and runs every time. They yell and scream at each other, but it’s started feeling like just  _something they do_  now. There are no results. No one ever concedes, and neither ever apologizes for the hateful things they spew at each other.

“Say something,” Regina says, and she resists taking a step towards Emma. If she’s learned nothing else in the last few weeks, she’s learned that it takes very little for Emma to bolt. “I’m giving up on you.” It’s a whisper, and she wants to take it back immediately, but it’s all too much. It’s all fucking too much, and she doesn’t want to feel responsible for the mess in front of her. She doesn’t want to care about this stupid woman.

_Go enjoy your happy ending, Regina._

Their first argument stemmed from that one little line. Because how could she have a happy ending with Emma not being  _Emma_. When her teenage son cried himself to sleep at night in her bed, allowing her to hold him like she used to when he had nightmares as a toddler. How the fuck was she supposed to just forget and move on, and how could Emma even think that she would want to?

“I don’t  _need_  you to save me,” Emma says, but it sounds more like a growl. “Go back to your boyfriend and your son and your town and just leave me alone.”

Regina does take a step forward then, the woman’s name on her lips again, but Emma holds up a hand to stop her.

“ _Regina_.” Emma’s hand falls, and she’s the one who takes a step towards Regina. “Stop it.”

Regina is expecting her to say more, Emma looks like she wants to. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, but she says nothing, and Regina slowly takes the final steps that puts her incontrovertibly in Emma’s  _space_.

“I can’t,” Emma whispers, and Regina shushes her, lifting her hand to brush the backs of her fingers against Emma’s cheek. The touch is tentative, the warmth of Emma’s bare skin feels foreign because they don’t touch. But the gesture feels right, and Emma doesn’t move away, so Regina turns her hand to press her palm fully to the woman’s cheek, the tips of her fingers resting behind Emma’s ear where they only just tangle in nearly-white curls.

Emma closes her eyes and turns her head to press more fully into the warmth of Regina’s hand. When tears gather under Emma’s lashes, Regina blinks at the sight. The change from Dark One to Lost Girl so sudden that it makes her heart pound at the sight of  _her_  Emma again.

“There you are,” she says through a smile, and Emma laughs through tears that are just starting to fall. The sound is wet and sad and choked, but it makes Regina’s smile widen.

Emma lifts her head to meet Regina’s eyes, and for just a moment, the world around them slows to a stop. The few lights surrounding the dock blur and fade, and the sounds from the town behind them become muddied noise that neither of them can focus on.

Regina’s thumb is sliding back and forth over Emma’s skin, soothing to them both. Emma is moving closer, eyes still locked on Regina’s, and Regina’s other hand finds Emma’s waist, encouraging her, when Emma’s comes to rest on Regina’s hip.

Regina’s eyes widen for a moment when Emma leans in only to flutter closed at the anticipation of feeling Emma’s lips on her own.

But it doesn’t come, and Emma is shifting away from her before she can say anything. When she opens her eyes, it’s to the sight of those fucking walls in Emma’s eyes suddenly rebuilt and stronger than they were before and she hates her.

“You should have let me take the darkness.” She hears herself say the words, but they’re detached and feel angrier than they should be. Emma doesn’t flinch, though, and somehow that makes her angrier. “I could have handled it.”

The  _unlike you_  is implied, and this time Emma does flinch, barely noticeable.

Emma nods. “Maybe so,” she says, and Regina hates her again for the deadness in her voice. “But I didn’t want you to have to try.”

This time, when Emma walks away, Regina doesn’t try to stop her. When Emma disappears at the end of the pier in a swirl of grey smoke, Regina doesn’t do anything but watch as the leftover clouds of it float up and dissipate in the light of one of the tall lamps on the dock.


End file.
